The Gallery
by kristen.barker.54
Summary: Namine's parents take her a new art gallery to hopefully inspire her own creativity, but when strange things begin happening, she has to figure out a way to get back to the original gallery with the help of a young man who also got lost in the strange puzzle-like world.
1. Namine

Namine looked out the window of her parents' Suburu, watching the raindrops 'race' down it. She was six years old, had dull blond hair that she draped around her shoulder, pale skin, and blue eyes. Since her mother was albino, she was half albino. "Did you remember your handkerchief, Namine?" her father asked.

"Yes," she replied quietly. She had a slight cold, and had to use her handkerchief to blow her nose. Her mother looked back at her daughter and smiled.

"You'll like this art gallery," she said. "I know how much you like to draw, so I figure this will inspire you." Namine smiled at her mother and went back to looking out the window. They were coming up on the new art gallery that just opened earlier that week. It was a relatively big building, and very popular. But Namine knew her parents would allow her to wander around by herself; she was very mature for her age. "This art gallery features work mainly by an artist called James Williams," her mother said as they walked into the building. And they don't just have paintings...they have sculptures and all kinds of other wonderful things," She smiled down at Namine. "I don't doubt that you'll enjoy it."

"If you want you can look around," her father said. "We're going to grab a couple pamplets. Just go bother anyone, okay, Namine?" She gave her father a look, making her mother laugh.

"Now, Greg, you know she won't bother anyone." Namine was very quiet girl, and didn't usually speak unless spoken to first. Greg smiled.

"True."

"You can go on ahead, dear. Just be careful, alright?" Namine nodded and walked off on her own, up the set of small stairs to the next room.  
As she walked, she gazed at the strange paintings and sculptures, there was one of a man looking rather concerned, and then there was one with twin looking towers that rose well above all the other sky scrapers in the painted city.

"The Twin Towers," Namine murmured to herself. Being only six, she didn't know most of the words used in naming the paintings, so she was glad she could read this title. She came to a rather interesting looking painting that a young man with odd dull pink hair was standing in front of, his hands in his pockets. She frowned as she looked at the title, The...World. She didn't know the second word. The man looked down at her and smiled.

"That says 'The Enlightened World," he said in a deep voice. She looked up at him for a moment at his ocean blue eyes, then back at the painting. "It looks strange, doesn't it? I'm not sure what the meaning is behind it..." He shook his head, bid her farewell, and then walked to some other part of the gallery. Namine looked back at the painting, and then the lights flickered, eventually going out. She looked around, noticing the other people in the gallery were gone.

"What...?" She ran back downstairs where her parents should've been, but the whole floor was empty, too. "Mom! Dad!" She cried. "Where are you?" She ran around until she came to a rather large sculpture of a fish. '... of the Deep.' Under the title was an explanation for it. 'A world will man will never be. To ... that world, I decided that I would ... it within the canvas.' Namine cocked her head. Swallowing, she turned and walked down a hall where something written on the floor caught her attention. "Come...Namine?" she whispered. BANG BANG BANG! She screamed, spinning around to see a hand print on the window behind her. She examined it, seeing that the window didn't appear to be locked, but it still wouldn't open. Then slowly red liquid began leaking from it. It smelled like paint. Why would red paint be leaking from the window? Slowly backing up, Namine turned her back and went back to the room where that Something of the Deep was.

As she passed a painting with fruit in it, an apple fell right from it, smashing onto the floor. Then a painting of a cat meowed, and a painting of a man who appeared to be having a fit sneezed. Namine squeaked and ran down the hall, yelling for her parents. No one answered. "Come down below, Namine. I'll show you a secret." Something echoed throughout the empty gallery, and Namine franically looked around, seeing nothing, and no one.

"Who's there?" she yelled. She wasn't getting scared; no, she was getting angry. Stuff like this just doesn't happen! She stomped toward the Something of the Deep exibit to see that it had been moved to reveal a set of stairs going down. "Come down below, huh?" she grumbled to herself. Fine. Might as well see what the heck was going on, right? So she descended down the stairs into an even darker basement type room with the word 'Come' written all over the walls. Yeah, yeah, yeah, she was coming. She came to a room at the end of the hall with a vase in front of it, a beautiful red rose sitting in it. She took the rose and put in her bag, feeling like she just needed it. She looked at the painting of a woman with blue hair on the wall and her eyes opened, a smile spreading onto her face. Namine squeaked and shuffled back.

"_If that rose wilts, you will too_." It said. Swallowing, Namine went into the room and slammed the door behind her.

The walls in this room said 'Thief' over and over again. Thief? Namine wasn't a thief, if that's what they were saying. She kept walking until she came to two pictures of an ocean, one red and one blue. Underneath the blue picture was a blue key, and she picked it up. Well she supposed she'd need it somewhere, and put it in her bag next to the rose.

Interestingly enough, she ended up using that key about three seconds later when she came to a blue door that was locked. Color coded. Nice. When she entered the room beyond that door the first thing she saw was a sign that read 'Beware the Edges'. "Edges of what?" she grumbled to herself. She began walking down the hall straight ahead of her and suddenly a hand shot out of the wall at Namine; she slammed back against the other wall, where a second hand shot out and tried to keep her against it; she bit it and scrambled to the middle of the hall. "Edges of the walls," She continued down the hall, and hands continued to shoot out at her.

When she got to the end of the hall she saw a green locked door and a painting of an ant. "It looks like it can be taken down," she murmured, then removed it and walked back down the hall with the hands. She wasn't sure what she could do with it, but she was sure it had to come in handy somewhere. She went down the hallway leading to the left where there hung a bunch of pictures of bugs. "Creepy," Namine whispered. She went into a little room off the hallway to see a giant hole in the floor. Oh, this was where she could put the painting! She laid it down and walked across it; something squished under her feet. She looked down to see the ant had been squashed and blood was leaking from it. "Oops..." she murmured.  
On the other side of the hole there was a green key laying on the floor in front of a red mannequin. As Namine picked the key up and mannequin moved; she slowly moved her eyes to look up at it. Then it lunged at her, grabbing her by her hair. She screamed and kicked its hand, hurting her foot in the process, and ran back across the painting and as the mannequin tried to cross it it ripped, sending the mannequin hurling down to the concrete floor below; it shattered. Panting, Namine went back to the green door and unlocked it, walking inside. She came to a room with a giant cat on the wall, a fish-shaped hole in the middle. So she had to find some sort of fish.

Slowly she realized this was going to be puzzle, and she groaned, hitting her head against the wall. She hated puzzles, though...


	2. He is Marluxia

Growling, Namine went through the door to her left to find a room with a bunch of covered up paintings in it. On the wall next to her was a picture of a stickman and some instructions; How about we play hide and seek? Pull back the curtains to find me! "Ugh, I don't have time for games," Namine hissed. Luckily for her, the first curtain she pulled back had the same picture of the stickman; something ripped through it, making Namine shuffle back, and hit the ground before her. A wooden...fish head? Sighing, she picked it up and put it in her bag.

Across the hall in the other room was a store house, it seemed, for extra materials, and as Namine looked around she saw that one of the statues was moving...toward her. Eyes widening, she took a step back. "Get...get away," she whispered. It continued sliding over to her, as if being pushed, and then it fell over, shattering into a million pieces. Namine made a sound of pain as one its arms hit her foot and she jumped into the wall, moaning in pain. Still, it didn't hurt as bad as the time she broke her foot. Through her pain and slight irritation she saw something in the broken pieces of the statue; the fish tail! "Ha!" She hurried over to it as best she could and picked it up, pulling the fish head out of her bag and linking the two together. Now she could do something with it. She went back out to the room where the cat's head was and placed the fish into the key hole. It meowed loudly and the doors opened up for her. "Weird," she murmured. "Very very weird."

She came to a room with someone lying in the center... the man from the gallery? She hurried over to him and saw how pale he looked, his eyes closed and his dull pink hair a mess. There appeared to be wounds all over him, and he was clutching tightly onto something. Gently, Namine pried it from him; he was still warm. A key. Sighing, she supposed there was nothing she could do for the man, and turned and left, going down the hall away from him.

She found a locked room that looked like it belonged in the gallery, full of paintings and sculptures...She came to a painting of a beautiful woman and as she stared at it, the woman smiled. But not in a friendly way. Suddenly half of the woman burst out of the painting, reaching for Namine and scratching her face. Yelping, she ran away from it; it crawled after her, the woman making sketchy gurgling noises. Namine ran into the one door in the room and slammed it shut; the woman slammed into it for awhile, and then her gurgly noises quieted. Did she go somewhere else?

Taking a breath, Namine looked around the room she had ran to and saw something blue on the floor. A rose petal? She followed it until she came to another one of those alive paintings, only this lady was in blue, and she was picking the petals off of a blue rose. "Hey!" Namine yelled. The lady looked at her and growled, picking another petal off the rose. Namine had a feeling that that rose was very important. "Stop that!" She took a step toward the lady, and she took off, crawling quickly over to Namine, who kicked her in the face and ran for the rose; it only had three petals left.  
Jumping onto the painting so the lady face planted onto the floor, Namine hurried out of the room and slammed the door shut, avoiding the other lady. When she came back to the room the man was in, she found he was even paler, more wounds on his face and neck, and he looked...dead. Swallowing, Namine looked around, spotting a vase on an end table by the wall. She placed the blue rose in it and watched in awe as more petals grew on it, bringing the rose back to life. "Wow..." she whispered as she pulled the rose from the vase. She looked back at the man and figured she was too late, and that she should at least give him this rose. She already one, right?

So she placed it on his chest.

She squeaked and shuffled back when his wounds immediately healed and his color came back. Making a noise, he opened his eyes and sat up, catching the rose as it fell to his lap. "What...?" He looked around and saw Namine, and stood. "You're that girl from the gallery," he muttered. She cocked her head.

"I thought you were dead," she said quietly. He chuckled solemnly.

"I thought so too. Did you give this back to me?" He held out the rose to show what he was talking about.

"Back?"

"Yes, back. It was taken from me, and it looks like whatever damage this rose takes, I take."

"It was nearly wilted when I found it..." If the rose wilts, so will you. She blinked.

"Well, what's your name?"

"Namine."

"Namine. My name is Marluxia."

"What's going on?" Namine asked. Marluxia shook his head.

"No idea, but we have to get back to the gallery. It's not safe down here, especially for a girl your age," She narrowed her eyes.

"I've done just fine," she said. Marluxia smiled.

"Well I'm sorry if I insulted you. But I'm still not going to leave you alone down here. Besides, we're trying to get to the same place. I'll come with you." Namine nodded.

"Okay."  
...


End file.
